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Monday, November 3, 2014

So it's been a while, guys. I'm not sure if any of you even read this blog anymore....haha. Geez. Time flies doesn't it? But for me, time seems to have come to a standstill. There are no new gunpla projects to look forward to, no adrenaline rush of a grand GBWC project. I am still interested in mecha, but I feel like I am looking at this hobby through a glass wall. Just looking, not participating.

Those of you who might have read an earlier deleted post sometime in May this year might know why...

I don't really live in the house I used to call home anymore. The house where I thought I would set up my Gundam workshop for life. I still remember some 4 years ago when I first moved in, full of uncertainty, yet hope and promise. I had all kinda plans. Gundam-wise, I had wanted a proud state-of-the-art display...I wanted an industrial-finish type room where I could call my 'workshop'. Eventually I settled in and considered this sacred space (which may look like a warzone at times!) my sanctuary. Some really memorable products came out of this room - From my very first ever entry: PG Flight-type Astray, to the last GBWC monster: Morrigan. Good times, huh guys?

I have so many memories here. Most of them, late nights or lazy weekends. I've had friends like Toymaker and Mechaman over, working relentlessly on projects or just shooting the mecha breeze. I used my display shelf for photography and even the industrial-finish walls, as backing for fashion photography. I was comfortable. Probably too comfortable.

And then in May this year the bottom of my Gunpla world (and my WHOLE damned world also) fell out. :P Due to a brutal break-up, I could no longer call our home, home. I had to move out. Sure, the house still belonged to me and my family. But I could not go back there, and still prefer not to, because the emotional burden is simply too great. What's the big deal? Some friends have asked. Now you've got the whole house to yourself! Go crazy! Throw a Gundam party! Expand your display shelf! Bring out the airbrushes and spray in the living room! Heh. If only it were that easy, guys. If only.

The Gundam room stands as it is. My display pieces, my toy collection, gathering dust. My tools are like ghosts of yesteryear, unused and uncleaned. A room that once used to churn out colours, is now stagnant, unproductive.

Today, half a year later, as I am still making sense of the pieces of my life and putting everything back together, Gunpla remains a painful, yet beckoning facade of my life I don't really yet know how to confront. What's the big deal, you ask? Well I went through many months of questioning if my passion got the better of me, and kinda took over my life without me realising it. In my most regretful moments, I was 'blaming' Gunpla to a certain extent. Every project I look at reminds me of that time in my life that I was working on it. I remember all the things I was doing at that point in time, and how everything was right in my world back then. Stuff I shouldn't be hung up on now anymore, because being caught in the past gives me no way to move on into the future. Memory is a bitch ain't it? So I steered away. Yet, this had been such a big part of my life, and had given me so much inspiration and joy.

And inspiration is something that I sorely lack these days. When I lost the urge for the hobby, I lost inspiration and the ability or need to CREATE something, which is in essence, what gunpla is about. When you agonise over a panel line, the colour of your armour, or the pose of your figure on its dio, you're trying to create something from your imagination. It's a craft. It's not just going to the supermarket to get stuff, or fulfilling your need to consume something by shopping at the mall. You actually have the power to CREATE. To see something come out from nothing, using your own hands and tools. This is the closest to playing God one can achieve, in a dramatic sense. When I walked away from all this, I guess I lost a spark in my life. I also nearly lost some friends, who came from the hobby. Thankfully, they have been understanding, and will always be close by.

So as the months go by and I pick myself up, I'm still wondering how I can continue this hobby. There is no suitable space yet in my parent's house where I'm living. I cannot go back to my old apartment where everything was as I left it because it holds too many ghosts. At some point I would probably have to pack up all my stuff, and sell or rent out the place. That would be another hard move to make...yikes.

Perhaps a way to start would be to begin from scratch. To start from snap-fitting again. And see where the itch to change something...some panel line or some detail...will turn into a thirst for extensive modifications...and then ultimately, inspiration that used to come so easily to me. The kind that you guys, still busy with your gunpla projects, take for granted.